Transcript of Dr. Ohta & the Killer Prophet New

Hey weirdos, I'm Ash and I'm Alayna and this is Morbid. This is Morbid. It's also kind of like an 800 call service because I have a sexy voice.

It's true, she does.

It's like in and out though. Like I can force it to not be so—

Yeah. It's the allergies.

It's the allergies. It's the asthma.

The asthma.

My asthma. It's just, it's a whole bunch of things, you know?

Yeah.

You know? What are you gonna do?

It's the goddamn pollen. It's here to stay. I don't know when it's— We've had several rains, several intense rains.

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Storms even.

It rains every fucking weekend.

It's raining all the time and it's like, and then we wake up and it's just somehow more pollen on my porch. Yep. And now just puddles of pollen. Now the pollen has gathered.

The pollen puddles gross me the fuck out. I'm also driving a pollen mobile.

Yeah.

If you have a black car, pollen mobile.

Yeah, there's no— don't get your car washed in New England right now.

I recently did and I don't know why I did. It was a waste of $22.

I know. Like, that's actually wild that you did that.

I just hate, like, if when it builds up to a certain point, I like can't handle it.

I know, it's true. But I'm just like, it's going to get this way tomorrow.

I know, but then I'm like, am I like breathing this in? Like having— probably like sitting in my pollen mobile.

You're breathing it in everywhere. It's coming into your house. Oh, I know.

I need to get my, um, my air ducts cleaned out. This is 30.

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Officially 30. So many people message me like really nice things, so thank you guys for of the birthday wishes.

The birthday wishes.

I still haven't quite celebrated. My 30th birthday was the most 30th birthday. It was so low key and so great.

They usually, yeah, they get chiller as you go.

Drew was like, you don't want to do anything? I was like, no, I want to order takeout. Yeah. And I want to lay on the couch.

That's all I ever want to do for my birthday.

And I saw my grandparents. Yeah. And Elena. Yep. And that was great.

That's it.

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That's all I want.

Yeah. Uh, but we are going out soon to celebrate.

Yeah, we'll celebrate for sure. We have a plan.

Yeah, we're going to have a funeral. It's true. For my 20s.

Yeah, as you should.

Let's kill them. Yeah. All right, um, buy tickets to Radio City Music Hall. There's not that many left.

There isn't, so go get them.

Go get them. Go wander the streets of New York afterwards. Yeah, it's fine.

It's going to be great. Just kidding, don't do that. We got cool dresses. It's going to be a fun time.

I know our dresses from Romania are coming in soon, and I'm going to poop my pants when I see it.

Truly.

Just not in the dress. What to do? Oh, I still need to figure out like our hair.

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I gotta make some calls.

Make some calls. I gotta do some admin.

We're doing our own makeup. Yeah.

That's that. We had, we had a mishap with makeup once that will forever scar us.

We, that's all we can say.

That's all we can say. But you're on a need to know basis.

Just know, just know that we will be doing our own makeup for the rest of our lives.

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Thank you. And without—

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But preorder The Butcher Legacy. Preorder it, get it. It's fun.

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So close to finishing.

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I think that's all we have.

Yeah. So ding, now it starts.

There you go. So we're going to be talking about the Otaf family killings and a killer prophet today. Oof. I feel like I don't even want to call this man a prophet.

He probably just called himself that.

I don't even know if he did. I think he just got kind of like dubbed that.

Damn, that's even worse.

Yeah. This is a really awful story. One that I actually hadn't really heard that much about before. Dave suggested it and I was reading into it and I was like, oh my God.

Yeah, I think I know this one.

I think you probably do. It was right— it was in California. Yep, around the '70s, like very close to the Manson Family murders. Like literally, this happened while the Manson Family was on trial.

Oh wow.

Yeah. So a little past 8 PM on the evening of October 19th, 1970, firefighters got an emergency call about an out-of-control fire at 999 Rodeo Road in Soquel, uh, California. It's a suburb of Santa Cruz County. Okay. Now this was a multi-million dollar mansion and it was the home to 45-year-old Dr. Victor Ohta, who was a very popular local ophthalmologist. He lived in that house with his wife Virginia, as well as their two sons, 12-year-old Derek and 11-year-old Taggart. The couple also had two daughters, Lark and Tara, who were away at boarding school luckily when the fire began. Now the house sat on top of a really high hill with two long driveways leading down to the main road. And when firefighters arrived to the scene, they found that the main driveway was blocked by Mr. Ohta's Rolls-Royce. It was parked across the driveway, like the width.

That's not usual.

No. Now there was a second car, which was a large Lincoln Continental, and that was parked across the same way, the second driveway, like both driveways were blocked.

To literally try to keep people from getting there.

Yeah. Wow. Luckily, firefighters were able to push one of the cars out of the way and they managed to get the truck up to the house. But once they got there, they ran into another problem. The house was too far from any fire hydrants to connect the hose and start extinguishing.

I feel like that—

is that like— I don't think that would be like up to code nowadays.

I was going to say, that's not okay.

No, I don't think so. I don't know.

That is not all right at all.

It was the '70s, so I don't know if people really thought that much.

So they were like code?

About it. Yeah.

I don't know.

Maybe it wasn't code. Yeah. So thinking fast, one of the firefighters suggested that they could siphon water from the swimming pool in the back of the house.

Pretty good idea.

That was smart. I don't know if that would work if you had like a saltwater pool though. I was thinking. Hmm.

Cause like. Still might.

Still could. But also then like there's a lot of chemicals in pools. So it's just interesting to think about. Yeah. But they had to do something. The fire wasn't, it was serious, but it wasn't as large as they expected. So the pool would be a pretty sufficient source of water. So they dragged the hose to the back of the house, but when they reached the pool, they made a terrible discovery. 5 bodies floating face down in the water. Fire Chief, uh, Ted Pound said, I went to the pool to see where the end of the pipe came through and my flashlight beamed, my flashlight beam spotted one of the kids.

Oh.

So Chief Pound called out for one of the detectives on the scene and was met at the back of the house by Detective Terry Medina. Medina later said, the first thing that I noticed was that the bodies are tied, but not with rope. They're like silk scarves that are knotted together to tie the hands. To everybody's surprise, this simple fire had just turned into a multi-murder scene. Damn. Now they soon learned that the bodies were those of Dr. Ohta, his wife Virginia, the two youngest children, Derek and Taggart, and the fifth body was Dr. Ohta's longtime secretary. 38-year-old Dorothy, uh, Cadwalader. Based on the medical examiner's initial observations, it seemed like Dr. Ohta had been shot once in the chest and twice in the back before he was pushed into the pool. And the other 4 victims had all been shot once in the back of the neck and then were pushed into the pool. Oh God. All of the victims had their hands bound with colorful silk scarves, and Dr. Ohta was known to wear those scarves instead of like a regular necktie. Oh God. So those were all of his own personal scarves.

That's spooky.

And all 5 victims were also blindfolded. Now, as far as the forensic investigators could tell, the victims were each shot beside the pool, like I said, and then immediately pushed in. Now, to the frustration of investigators, the crime scene really didn't have that many clues as to what happened at the house that night. All 5 victims seem to have been shot at close range, execution style. And the killer, or maybe multiple killers, had set several small fires throughout the house, presumably to cover up the crime. Yeah. Now fortunately, the fires failed to catch or really spread as easily as they probably hoped they would, so there was minimal fire damage. But there was still not that much to be found inside. From what investigators could tell, nothing looked to be missing, so they were able to rule out robbery as a motive. But even more concerning was the lack of evidence of any kind of struggle. Hmm, this is a family of 5. You would expect there to be some kind of struggle. It seemed very unlikely to investigators that a single intruder could overtake and completely control 5 people, 3 of which were grown adults.

Yeah.

And they had to face the terrifying possibility at that point that they were dealing with what one detective described as another Manson case.

Oh, because that had what just happened, literally.

Like I said, the Manson Family was on trial.

Yeah, that was probably one of the first things they thought of.

It was. It cannot be understated how significant the fear of another Manson-style murder was at the time of these murders. It was a little more than a year earlier when Charles Manson and his followers broke into the Hollywood home of director Roman Polanski and his wife Sharon Tate while Polanski was away in Europe. As we know, they killed 5 people staying in the house, including Sharon Tate, who was 8 and a half months pregnant. And then the very next day, they murdered Leno and Rosemary LaBianca. Now, the murders had always been symbolic of a larger shift in fear toward uncertainty, but they were just the first of a lot of horrific acts that would go on to reshape California throughout that period. At the time, residents of the San Francisco Bay Area were being terrorized by the Zodiac Killer, like, as all of this was going on, and there were a slew of other violent criminals who kept Californians in constant fear of being killed. Yeah, like California in the '70s, it cannot be terrifying enough how insane it was, because then just a couple years later you would have, uh, Ed Kemper.

Yep.

They're like— there's so many more.

Oh yeah, some of the scariest ones.

So just one morning after the Ohta murders, 19-year-old Tom DeCheco was found dead inside the gas station where he worked, and his body was stuffed into an alcove just off the main garage. The station was in Saratoga, which was just 30 miles from where the Ohta family lived. Like the Ottas, DeCheco had been shot in the back of the head execution style, and his wrists were also bound, this time with electrician's tape. Jeez. According to the medical examiner, his murder occurred roughly 2 hours after the Otta murders, and that brought to everybody's mind the murders of the LaBiancas. Investigators declined to comment on whether the crimes were related, but they couldn't help think of the Manson murder spree and wonder if this was some kind of copycat crime.

Yeah, I mean, I would think that right away.

A whole family and then the kid, you know. Mm-hmm. So the fear of a new murderous cult only grew deeper when investigators started combing over the crime scene at the Ohta home, and they reached the cars at the bottom of the driveway. It was clear, obviously, like we said, that the killer rearranged the cars on purpose to prevent the firefighters from reaching the house, and the police too.

The killer's so fucked up and so, like, thinking— that's so premeditated.

It is, absolutely. I'm so glad that you said that. The killer actually even went as far as to break the key of Dr. Ohta's car off in the ignition so that they could move it. That's why they got one of them. But more disturbing was the typewritten note that they found tucked under the windshield. It read, Halloween 1970. Today World War III will begin, as brought to you by the people of the Free Universe. From this day forward, anyone and/or everyone or company of persons who misuses the natural environment or destroys same will suffer the penalty of death by the people of the free universe. I and my comrades from this day forth will fight until death or freedom against anyone who does not support natural life on this planet. Materialism must die or mankind will stop. And then it was signed Knight of Wands, Knight of Cups, Knight of Pentacles, Knight of Swords. All of those knights were spelled correctly, like K-N, other than the Pentacles. That one was spelled like nighttime.

Like night, okay.

Which is just weird. No, detectives saw similarities between the note and the apocalyptic ranting from the Manson Family, like similar kind of vibes there. But the signatures at the bottom of the note were entirely new and entirely unfamiliar to investigators.

Hmm.

They— not everybody was very familiar with tarot back then.

Yeah.

So the reference to four possibly occult sounding names only reinforced the concern that they were dealing with a new murderous cult. Yeah. A copycat, if that. Now, elsewhere in the house, more evidence suggested that the Ota murders were not an impulsive act. In addition to the killer or killers having taken the time to block the driveway, investigators quickly discovered that the killer had also cut the phone lines, which is the scariest thing to me. Yeah, um, and they also discovered a box of .22 caliber shells, which indicated that they had the forethought to bring additional ammunition. Holy shit. But the killer had collected all the spent cartridges at the scene and left little evidence of having been there at all. Wow. Now, when considered together, the evidence suggested that these murders were definitely planned in advance, and the presence of the note suggested that whoever was responsible seemed intent on killing again. Yeah. So despite the presence of several high-profile cases in San Francisco and Los Angeles in the summer and the fall of 1970, violent crime was really something that didn't happen in the quiet suburban area of Santa Cruz. In fact, the Ota murder was the first murder in the county's history.

Wow, crazy.

Damn, we've done it. That was like the Martha Moxley case.

Yeah, it was like, like, that was like one of the first. This was legit the first. Wow. Under the circumstances, suspicion quickly settled on the relatively small hippie community in and around Santa Cruz, and especially I think because of the Mansons.

I was gonna say the Mansons didn't help hippies out.

No, they did not. One neighbor told a reporter, it looks like another Manson thing to me. And another commented, looks like drugs. Which, like, it doesn't really look like drugs because there was a lot of careful planning.

I was gonna say, it's not chaos.

No, not at all.

Like, that, that is a very planned out, almost professional crime scene.

I don't know if they said looks like drugs because of like the execution-style killings. Yeah, who knows?

Or they're just thinking of hippies, so they're like, drugs.

Exactly. Now, in reality, detectives had no idea what the motive could have been. If it had been drugs, then they reasoned that the killer would have at least taken some of the jewelry or the other valuables that were in plain sight around the house. I mean, this is a mansion, like, there's valuables everywhere.

Yeah, I was shocked by that.

Yeah. And if it were a Manson copycat, they expected some sign of the occult left behind. But aside from the cryptic, mysterious note there was not that much to indicate a motive. In fact, other than the note, the only thing detectives knew for sure was that the killer or killers had stolen Virginia Ohta's green Oldsmobile station wagon. District Attorney Peter Chang told reporters, this was the most tragic murder scene I've witnessed in 9 years. We will need all the outside help we can get. Now, in the absence of any forensic evidence pointing to a motive or a suspect, detectives started looking into the background of the victims. Family friend Douglas Liddicoat said, the life of Dr. Victor Ohta reads like a classic American dream. Yeah, he was born in Montana to Japanese immigrant parents who worked really hard to build a life for their family, only to have everything ripped away from them when they were placed in an internment camp in 1941.

Holy shit.

Despite everything he faced, Victor was a great student. He worked all these odd jobs to support not only himself through college but also his parents. He always sent money to his parents. Oh, after graduating with With an undergrad degree, he enlisted in the Army in 1943 and served 2 years before returning home and enrolling at Northwestern University, where he studied ophthalmology. At night, he drove a cab in order to support himself and his parents. Damn. Because by that point, they were too old and too weak to work anymore. After graduating in 1950, he met and married Virginia, and before long, she was pregnant with their first son. Uncertain about their financial situation, Victor decided actually to re-enlist in the Army and he served several years as a flight surgeon.

Whoa.

Which is crazy.

That must be wild.

Next level.

Yeah.

And then eventually he returned to Northwestern to continue his studies and he was just determined to become the top specialist in his field.

Hell yeah.

Which he really did become one of them. Now it was during this time that tragedy struck and the couple lost their son Kevin to pneumonia when he was only 2 years old. Their daughter Lark said— Their first son at 2 years old.

Like, 2 years old. Holy shit.

That's horrific. Their daughter Lark said, I know it was traumatic. It was another 2 years before they even considered having more children. So the emotional toll of the loss and the added expenses of a funeral pushed Victor back into the army where he managed to finish his studies while also making a livable wage. And that finally made it possible for them to consider having more children. Now, over the course of the next decade, Dr. Victor Ota built one of the most successful medical practices in Santa Cruz County.

Hell yeah.

And at the same time served as a founding member on the board of the Dominican Hospital.

Wow.

Like, doing the damn thing.

Yeah.

Not long after establishing his own private practice, he hired Dorothy Codwalader as his, uh, secretary. She became an indispensable asset to the family, and in no time she really just became part of their family. She joined them for holidays, birthdays, vacations. And actually, unfortunately, they did have quite the bond because Dorothy and her husband had also lost a child at a young age. Their child was struck and killed by a mail truck.

Holy shit.

Yeah. Now, as far as anybody knew, Dr. Ohta and the family had no enemies to speak of, and nobody could imagine who might want them dead, like him specifically, much less his entire family.

You also wonder with like stories like that, you're like, why do some people just have the worst luck?

All the shit. It's so true.

And a lot of times it's like the nicest people, best kind of people. Like that never makes sense to me.

No, I feel like we know so many families like that.

Yeah, because like her, like Dorothy and her husband lost a child in such a horrific way and now he loses her this way. Like, why, why do they have to deal with all that? And then the Ottas, like, it's— I just don't— whenever you hear about that, you're like, Jesus.

And Dorothy and her husband, much like the Ottas, went on to have more children. Yeah, so now her children and her husband lost her. It's awful.

You just don't get it. I don't either.

Dr. Louise Weilman, a friend, said, never once did I hear him speak an angry word to any— anybody. Dr. Ota was always friendly, always generous to give to charitable organizations.

Oh, that breaks my heart.

Yeah, Lark, his daughter, echoed the sentiments of friends and neighbors and colleagues. Literally everybody in this community loved this family. Lark said, my dad was a magnanimous man. He was generous and outgoing and friendly. He was just a good man. He was loved in that community.

Oh, I also love that name, Lark.

I do too. It's such a good name. Now, the same was true for the other victims. Like her husband, Virginia Ota grew up in an immigrant family, and she worked alongside her husband to make sure that their kids had opportunities that her and her husband never could have dreamed of. Lark said of her mother, she was the strongest and most determined person that I knew, and I miss her deeply. Victor may have been the face of several charities at the hospital, but Virginia was very much working behind the scenes to ensure that Everything ran smoothly. More than just a doctor's simple, stylish wife, she was an active, integral member of this community, and she was a dedicated mother. She was so committed to raising those kids to not only have the best opportunities, but with an awareness of both sides of their heritage. While Dorothy Call Wallader might not have been as outgoing as Dr. Ota and Virginia, she left an impression on the lives that she touched. Her daughter Melinda said, my mom was very elegant. She was very s— '60s makeup, false lashes, and hairstyles. Dorothy spent her entire professional life working in healthcare, and for the previous 8 years she worked in Dr. Ohta's private practice.

She managed nearly every aspect of that business. She always jumped in to help with the Ohta children when the parents were too busy, and all the children loved and respected her. Like, this was very much a, like, a family. Yeah, like a blended family.

Yeah.

Now, when Victor and Virginia had to go out of town or to a conference or a charity event, Dorothy and her husband would welcome all of the Otaugh kids into their home. Wow. And just treated them like they were their own children. Damn. Lark said, Dorothy was perfect, like a '60s TV mom, except that she worked. She was beautiful inside and out. Nearly everything investigators had learned about the Otaugh family and about Dorothy indicated that these were all well-liked, deeply appreciated people in their community. Yeah. Just like great people. They were the last people anybody would expect to be the victims of violent crime. The only involvement with the law that Dr. Ohta had in his past was in 1967, when a group of thieves actually broke into his office and they stole a cocaine solution that he, that he used in his surgical procedures.

Geez. So it wasn't even him.

No. Otherwise, there appeared to be nothing in the background of any of the victims that pointed toward their killer. So in the absence of any new evidence, any new leads, anything, detectives turned their attention back to their original theory. That the victims had been killed by either a cult or a Manson Family copycat. Santa Cruz County and SoCal in particular had always been a quiet area. In the summer, the area was popular with tourists. They like to visit the beaches, but otherwise it was mostly populated by wealthy retirees. Oh, okay. So by the mid-'60s though, the University of California opened a campus in Santa Cruz, and that brought a younger crowd to the area. And by the end of the '60s, many among that crowd embraced the hippie lifestyle. It was very much of the time, but also very much to the disappointment of locals.

Oh, I'm sure.

In reality, the small but noticeable hippie community in the area, they were mostly peaceful. They actually really didn't engage with many protests.

They were just vibing.

Yeah, like all across the country there were like, like activism, different things like that going on. But here these hippies just kind of hung out around this, uh, cafe and coffee shop called the Catalyst. The Catalyst. They hosted folk music and poetry readings regularly, like just a very chill place.

I just— that just made me think of something completely unrelated to this, but I feel like you need to know it right now.

I do.

Uh, I just thought of the name The Catalyst as like— I'm like, wow, what a name for a cafe. Did you know that 98 Degrees almost named themselves Spontaneous Combustion?

I actually did, and I saw you post about that.

If you didn't see that post, I just needed everybody to know that.

I feel like Spontaneous Combustion.

It would make them a completely different band. Yeah, like a completely different band. And one of them also wanted to be called Inertia.

Oh, Inertia could have been cool. I—

it's been sitting within me, so I just had to put it out there when I heard The Catalyst.

I feel like they didn't quite know what vibe they were going for because those are three completely different, like, genres.

That's the thing, it sounds like they knew the vibe they wanted to go for, they just could not.

But then they went They went with the right name.

They went with the right name for the vibe. Spontaneous Combustion will live in my soul.

Yeah. Yeah. I feel like The Catalyst is also a bomb name for a coffee shop.

The Catalyst is a really cool name for a coffee shop. That's why it made me think of it.

Like anything.

Yeah. Even a band name.

The Catalyst. I think The Catalyst is a band.

Probably.

Well, here it's a coffee shop and they, you know, they had like little hippie gatherings all the time. Yeah.

Hippie gatherings.

You know, I want to go to one. Even though things were pretty chill with this group and they kept to themselves, after the Ohta murders, the local police were very worried that there would be tension between the hippies and the older residents in Santa Cruz.

I thought you meant just tension between the hippies.

No, never tension between the hippies. It's always outsiders. Always. I'm just picturing like hippies fighting.

Yeah, just like having tension. Weird.

Yeah. Now at the time, the contents of the note found on Dr. Ohta's windshield had not yet been made public. And it was truly only because of the Manson murders that the locals even suspected somebody from the Catalyst community was responsible for the murders. Dr. Terry Medina said, there was already fear. People were already buying guns. We didn't want retaliation against hippies or vigilantism, so we decided not to release the contents of this note, which I think was a good idea. Probably smart, because unfortunately, whether they wanted it or not, retaliation was inevitable. As soon as the news about the murders made the papers, the Catalyst started getting all kinds of harassing phone calls and even a few bomb threats.

Wow.

Which, like, you guys don't know anything about this murder.

That's— it's, it's wild to know that even then, before the internet, people are gonna people. People were still peopling in a way of being like, I know the whole story, even though I know nothing about the story. Way worse now. But I feel like it's— there it is. Because people have always been doing that thing where they're like, well, I heard this much of the story. So let's put it on this person's table. So now I know the whole story and I'm going to act based on that tiny little grain of sand that I know. Yep. We all have to stop doing that.

We do.

Can we stop that? I'm down. Can we all agree collectively to stop doing that?

I'm down.

Until you know a whole story inside and out, don't act.

And here's the thing, when these things are initially reported on, you know nothing. Yeah, you know nothing. The tip of the tip of the ice. Oh yeah, just a little boop boop. They know what you want them, or what they want you to know.

That's the thing.

Now, given the way that they'd been treated in the community and now facing harassment, the staff and the patrons at The Catalyst had every reason not to trust the police, trust the locals, or really talk to anybody. But when investigators canvassed the restaurant they found a group of people who were actually very eager to help. Yeah, no one at the Catalyst really knew anything about the murders or the Otaugh family, but when detectives brought up the contents of the note to these people, they learned from one of the patrons that the four signatures at the end of the note were not signatures, they were suits from the tarot.

Yes.

Now back at the police station, Detective Medina and the other investigators laid out the Knight of Wands, the Knight of Cups, the Knight of Pentacles, and the Knight of Swords on the desk in various configurations. Hoping that the cards might tell themselves about the contents of the note or the murders. Medina said, "We really didn't come up with very much, but it was still very cultish." Very cultish. Cultish.

I love very cultish to me.

It's still '70s to have that take.

Just like pretty cultish.

Almost like, do you want to bring in one of the hippies who knows tarot who can maybe tell you something?

Yeah, that's the thing. Get some experts.

Exactly. Now, on the second day of the investigation, just as they were settling into their theory of a newly formed cult, Investigators got a call that would undermine that theory altogether. The call was from a gas station attendant on the outskirts of Sokol, uh, who had been working on the night of the murders. According to the caller, he'd been sitting outside the gas station when a young man in a green station wagon pulled up looking for gas. At the time, that specific station had run out of gas, so the attendant directed the driver to another station about a mile down the road. He couldn't remember the exact time, but he said it was probably a little before 8 PM, which was not long after the Ottas were killed. Ooh. According to the attendant, the car matched the description of Virginia Ottas' Oldsmobile, and there was only one person in the car. And while the attendant never saw the man's face in the light, he did say that the driver had a fairly distinctive voice, and he was certain that he would recognize it if he heard it again. Hmm. Now that was just the first of many calls that investigators got that day, most reporting leads that really went nowhere.

But among the dud calls, there was someone from the Southern Pacific Railroad with valuable information. The caller reported that one of their trains had collided with a green Oldsmobile wagon, hmm, in a tunnel not too far from the gas station where it had been spotted on the night of the murder. So sheriff's deputies rushed out to the scene hoping that they would find the killer or the killers, but by the time they reached the train tunnel where the car was discovered, the driver was nowhere to be found. Fortunately, neither the train nor the car suffered much damage in the collision. The only damage from the fire was to the upholstery inside the car, but any hope of finding useful evidence was quickly dashed. It had rained that morning, of course, and it had transformed the area of the tunnel into like kind of a mud pit.

Goddamn.

And it washed away any physical evidence that might have been left on the exterior of the vehicle. But there were several footprints left in the mud around the car. And while it was difficult to be 100% certain, it did seem that these footprints all belonged to the same person. Okay, so since the bodies were discovered, the police and the press had been operating on the assumption that there was more than one killer. Yeah, but now investigators, with all this new information, were starting to wonder if they had it wrong. The footprints found outside the car and the statement from the gas station attendant seemed to suggest that these 5 murders actually could have been committed by one single killer.

That's horrific.

And just to think, they have to think about how that possibly could have—

yeah, now you have to go back and be like, whoa, whoa, whoa, right? Wait a minute.

So frustrated with the lack of evidence and leads, detectives went back to question family and friends of the Ottaws in order to try to establish some kind of timeline, uh, which like would have accounted for the day of the murders.

Yeah.

So they learned that on the day of the murders, Dorothy had picked up one of the boys from school and drove him home because his mom was going to be late. So stick that in your back pocket.

Yeah, already this is adding up, changing the routine a little bit.

Now, from the beginning of the investigation, the assumption had been that the Otoff family had all been home at the same time.

Exactly.

When they were attacked, which would make that insane, right? But if Dorothy had picked up one of the children and Virginia planned to be home later, that strongly suggested that the family members could have arrived home one or two at a time. And if that was the case, an armed gunman easily could have overtaken them as they entered the house 2 by 2, especially if he had been lying in wait as they suspected, which is so fucking terrifying.

Horrible.

Now, the new theory did seem to match the evidence, but it did little to point them in the direction of somebody. Out of options and running the risk of this case going cold, investigators did make the decision to release the one piece of information that they had been holding back— that note, that note on the car. They hoped that somebody might recognize the language in the note. And on the day that it was published in the paper, Roger Krohn, the owner of the Catalyst, and several others at the cafe were reading that paper and recognized the content as being very similar to the ranting of a young man who'd been coming into the cafe recently.

Isn't that interesting that it's the Catalyst people?

Mm-hmm. That are like, wait a second.

That are like, wait a minute, we can help.

And that it's like a newcomer to the Catalyst, not like the typical crew. So Roger Krohn spent a lot of the afternoon agonizing over whether he should turn in one of his own customers and his own community members to the police. But in the end, he reasoned that if it was the same man, there was a very good chance he could kill again. So in the early hours of October— Wait, just quick.

He was not sure if he should—

He was stressed out about it.

Like this— I'm just being clear. Yeah. With myself.

Yeah.

So there's a possibility that this person murdered an entire family, including children.

Yeah.

And that was like something you were wrestling with?

Roger, Roger was nervous to turn on his own community. Okay. Yeah. I mean, but he eventually realized that he couldn't not do that.

Because you literally can't not do that. No, you can't not do that. I'm glad you realized.

And he said, he was like, if this is the same guy, he could kill again. And like, I got to tell somebody.

And he's already murdered kids. So he did the right thing.

And that goes to show you that you can, you know, you shouldn't, but you can sit there and question things for a minute and then ultimately come to the right decision.

Yeah, there you go. You can mull things over for about a minute and a half and then you can move on with the right thing. I'm glad he made the right decision. He did. In the end.

There's always that chance for you. Just had to be clear.

Yeah. I was like, what?

So in the early mornings of October 22nd, he met privately at the Catalyst with District Attorney Peter Chang. And he told him the note found at the scene sounded a lot like the apocalyptic rhetoric of a man named John Lindley Fraser. He'd been coming into the cafe in recent weeks, and according to Krohn, Fraser generally seemed like he was suffering from some kind of mental illness. He came into the cafe regularly ranting about capitalism, the rich destroying the earth, and he seemed very preoccupied with World War III.

All of that sounds very familiar.

All of that was in the notes.

And you know what, I can, I can at least take a step back now and say, okay, so he wasn't positive that this guy is the person. Like, he's not sitting there being like, I know he did it.

That's the thing. He was like, I think that it sounds like— it is difficult to take that first step and accuse, because you want to be like, hopefully that guy coming into my bar or my cafe didn't murder a family annihilator. Like, yeah, exactly.

So I'll step back. There you go. Look at it from a different angle.

So you see, you're always capable of that too. Yeah, I thought about it. Gross. So Roger provided a general description of Fraser, but he didn't really know that much about him. He didn't know where police might find him. In fact, given the increased bomb threats that the cafe had been receiving and the fear of violence that his customers were feeling, John wanted to make sure that Chang and all the other investigators understood that despite his appearance, John Fraser was not a member of the hippie community and he did not represent their values. He was like, please understand that.

Don't conflate us.

The DA indicated that he understood and that he would do his best to relay the message, but first he needed to find and stop John Lindley Frazier. So who the fuck is John Lindley Frazier?

Truly, who the fuck is he?

This is a doozy of a background. Oh boy. John Lindley Frazier was born January 26, 1946, in New Mexico to Pat and William Frazier. He was an Aquarius. The family was very far from wealthy, but they were well known in the area because they had a rabbit farm, and Pat, the mother, was an outspoken advocate of rabbit farming and animal welfare, both activities that she would later enlist the help of her son with. In 1970, she told a reporter, John was always kind to animals. He couldn't stand abuse of life. Wow. Now, according to Pat, the first year or two of John's life were pretty ordinary. The family was generally happy, but in mid-1947, they moved to Ohio to be closer to her husband's family. And that was when Pat started to notice that William, her husband, his personality was changing and he was just behaving in odd ways. She said he'd go out all night, forget where he lived, and get involved with other women. Oh, it's unclear whether his behavior was the result of a mental illness or if he was just unhappy, but either way, the sudden change in his personality took obviously a serious toll on his relationship with his wife and his son.

Pat tried to convince her husband that moving back to his hometown maybe was a mistake and suggested that they move and start over on their own, but he was not interested. So Pat said, I left and I thought he might come to his senses, but he didn't, so I started off on my own. Wow. Now a single mother with no income, she moved to Hayward, California to live with her own family, and she found a job working at a local hospital. At first, the new situation was really tough for John. His mom had to rely on her family to watch him while she was working 12-hour overnight shifts, and everything was made significantly worse in the months that followed when John's health appeared to be declining. Oh, one night while Pat was working at the hospital, her aunt brought John in and he had a high fever and acute stomach pain. At first, the attending doctor diagnosed him with pneumonia, but the situation took a very dramatic turn just a few hours later. When his appendix ruptured. Oh shit. Yeah. From there, things only got worse. After the surgery to remove his appendix, he was kept at the hospital for a few days and he was inadvertently exposed to measles.

Oh my.

So that added another 2 months onto his hospital stay. Oof. Yeah. Now his measles were followed by other upper respiratory illnesses.

Yeah.

Measles sucks. Upper respiratory illnesses.

Yeah. That's why they have vaccines for measles too.

And that's why. They are proponents of vaccine. Hell yeah. Now, eventually, uh, doctors removed his adenoids and they also removed his tonsils, and he started to improve, but then inevitably declined again when he was afflicted with just what seemed to be severe colds that went on and off for months.

Oh, that sucks.

Now, believing that the move and the living arrangements were contributing to her son's poor health, Pat quit her job and she moved to the San Francisco area. She enrolled in dental school and found new doctors for her son, and it took some time before they were able to properly diagnose him. But eventually it was discovered that he had contracted tuberculosis.

Holy shit.

Yeah. Now, this was all further complicated by injuries that he sustained in an auto accident in 1952.

What is going on?

Everything. In that accident, he broke his collarbone and also got a concussion. What? He was blind for several weeks after that accident.

This is so much trauma.

This kid isn't even in first grade yet.

This is an incredible amount of trauma.

This kid isn't even in first grade yet. That's— He's got a burst appendix, measles, tuberculosis, adenoids removed, tonsils removed.

Broken collarbone.

Broken collarbone. Went blind. Went blind and a concussion.

Holy shit.

Yeah. Now, once he had been properly diagnosed, his physical health improved dramatically, but there were several unusual behaviors that persisted regardless of the doctor's attempts to try to curb them. John frequently wet the bed, and it ultimately seemed to stop when he got married.

Oh, wow.

He was like a very long—

Late.

Yeah, but bedwetter. Um, he was also a chronic sleepwalker who struggled with other sleep disturbances for years.

Oh, man.

Now, after he was quote-unquote stabilized, Pat realized that she wasn't going to be able to go to school full-time, work at the evenings, and take care of her son. So she ended up placing him in foster care where he lived for 2 years. By the time that he did reach first grade, she was able to regain custody, but from that point forward, he struggled with a lot of behavioral problems.

The amount of trauma.

Yeah.

That happened to this child before first grade.

Yeah.

Is unthinkable.

It really is. It's also a wild concept to me that like you could just drop your kid off in foster care and then go pick them up a couple years later.

And then a couple years later just be like, okay. Yeah.

Ooh, nuts.

That's a lot.

So his first brush with the law came when he was 10 years old. Wow. And got caught shoplifting a pen knife from a store in San Francisco. Police were called and he was given a citation and had to appear in juvenile court. Eventually the charges were dropped, but his attitude and his behavior only continued to get worse. His 8th grade teacher said he was kind of a tough kid. His attitude was poor at times. He didn't seem like a happy kid. Yeah, it's like, I don't know that I'd be a happy kid either. 2 years later, after his mom moved to Santa Cruz, John was arrested again when he and his friends vandalized a tile factory in town. The parents of all of the boys made them clean up the factory and repair the damages, so the company agreed that they wouldn't press charges, but it didn't do much to stop his defiant behavior. By the time he reached high school, he was almost entirely uneducated in going to school. He went to a vocational school, but within a few months he started skipping classes, and soon he was just skipping school days altogether. Teachers and counselors tried to keep him engaged, but he continued to miss long stretches and eventually just dropped out entirely.

Pat said that was when he started to get in trouble. No, I feel like that's not where he started to get in trouble.

Babe. Yeah, that's not it. Objectively, that's not when he started getting in trouble.

He got arrested at 10 years old, babe. Yeah. So a series of more petty crimes led to a period of incarceration in a juvenile detention center. Which was then followed by juvenile parole, which he violated almost immediately.

Oh man, he's just on a path.

Yeah, clearly. Outside of the justice system, he also continued to demonstrate antisocial behavior. Um, trigger warning for animal abuse here.

I thought he was nice to animals.

Yeah, his mom thought so too, but there was one instance where he doused a neighborhood cat in kerosene and lit it on fire.

How do you go from Being kind to animals to that.

Head injuries. Wow. There were also charges for shoplifting and petty violence. In 1961, he was removed from his mother's care for a second time, this time involuntarily, and placed again in foster care. His relationship with his foster parents got off to a very bad start, and it basically stayed that way for the entire duration of the placement. In 1962, he was reported, uh, to the police by his foster parents for stealing a .22 caliber pistol, which he said he took in order to shoot animals for food.

Whoa.

So that charge got him sent back to a juvenile justice center in Watsonville, where he continued to demonstrate a very defiant and antisocial behavior, particularly when it came to authority figures. In 1966, he found work in the auto parts, uh, section of Disco, which it was a San Francisco department store. And it was there that he met Dolores, his soon-to-be wife. Not to be confused with my sweet angel of a daughter. No. Now she later said, I started taking Johnny home because he didn't have a car. And every time I took him home, we got closer and closer. She was married at the time, but within a few months she divorced her husband so that she could be with John Fraser. Whoa. Choices. At first, the relationship was pretty good. Everything seemed normal. But then she started to notice some unusual behavior in John. She said he would get horribly sweaty and cold and he'd yell and cry and whimper in the middle of the night.

Oh, that's really sad.

It is. And she said at times he seemed so paranoid that he kept a loaded gun in the drawer of his nightstand.

He's clearly suffering from something.

He has mental illness, 100%. So the couple got married in 1967 and moved to Washington hoping to make a fresh start, but unfortunately things did not work out out there. Jobs were very hard to come by, so they struggled and they scraped together enough just to get by. But in September of that year, Dolores found out that she was pregnant with their daughter Lisa, and it became clear that they weren't going to be able to make it in Washington. So they returned to the Santa Cruz area where John found work at an auto shop. Like always, things would be pretty good for a while, but then after a few months, John would find faults with his employer, with his coworkers. He'd get into arguments and he'd eventually get fired. Delores said he always had to change jobs because there was always someone who he couldn't get along with or who was always picking on him.

Oh, we all know people like that. It's never their fault.

Never their fault.

Yeah.

Finally, in 1969, he got a job with Performance West, which was a foreign car mechanic. And this was the one job that seemed to stick. The owner, Richard Dupont, told a reporter, he was the best worker I ever had. Whoa. Yeah. So Frazier managed to stay out of trouble until May of 1970, when he was picked up by police for harassing a local girl on the sidewalk. Awesome. Yeah. According to Dolores, the young girl had been walking down the sidewalk on her way to school when she was verbally assaulted by John. He denied it was him, but she was able to identify him in a lineup. After the identification, they let him go with a warning because he only frightened her. That's it. You have to actually cause somebody physical harm for it to even happen.

Yeah, you gotta really hurt someone too.

He didn't hit her.

No, he just scared the shit out of her.

She was just terrified on her way to school.

He just menaced her.

Yeah, that's all. It's fine.

Yeah.

Men are allowed to do that.

People are idiots. Yeah.

It's a man's world.

What are you thinking?

So to investigators, he sounded like countless other petty criminals that they'd run into. Young guys with bad upbringings who were mad at the world and their parents and wanted to take it out on whoever stepped on their path. He definitely seemed like a nuisance, but to investigators, he really didn't seem like the kind of guy who could plan and execute a mass murder of a family. For no obvious reason. Valid. Now, detectives managed to track him to Performance West, where they discovered he'd been working until a few months earlier when he quit unexpectedly. Now remember this.

Yeah, he's the best worker they've ever had.

The description of Frazier given by Dupont, that of a clean-cut married man and a great employee, seemed at odds with the man that investigators came to know through his criminal record. But as it turned out, there was an explanation for that. After Dupont gave them the address that they had on file for Frazier, detectives learned that right around the time he quit his job there, he also left his wife abruptly and moved out of the house. Oh, according to Dolores, a few days before he was picked up for that verbal assault, he was in another car accident and hit his head when he rear-ended another car.

Oh shit.

At the time, she said he didn't seem to be hurt in obvious way— in any obvious way, at least not physically. But she did say he had a bump on his forehead. It wasn't bleeding, just raised, but he wouldn't let me touch it at all. He wouldn't see a doctor, and he wouldn't hardly let me near him. Oh boy. Now, in the days that followed, he continued to insist that he was fine, but he started to behave even more strangely. According to his friend David Marlow, he started hearing voices that were warning him against catastrophe.

This is such severe mental health issues.

It is. Dolores said, he said he heard voices that said he should never drive again or he'd be killed. He was very different. His whole attitude was cheap and aggressive. He said—

that's a read. That's— wow, what a way to describe that. Cheap and aggressive. You're acting cheap. It's crazy.

Holy shit. Now, at first, Dolores was hesitant to tell the detectives where John had gone, but eventually she relented and she told them.

Guys, we gotta stop hesitating.

I think she was embarrassed.

Everyone's very hesitant because—

look, don't hesitate. Stop hesitating. Now After he moved out of the house, he moved into an abandoned shack in the woods just a few miles from the Ota's family house.

I hate this.

Later, after his picture was published in all the papers, neighbors of the Ota family told the police that they saw somebody who looked very much like Fraser walking from the woods to a water tower near their houses, where he appeared to watch the Ota house with binoculars for hours on end and then climb down from the water tower and retreat into the woods. To which I say, neighbors, if you see a strange man in the woods using binoculars to watch a family home, maybe call the police before that entire family gets murdered. The amount of unnecessary hesitation in this story is sending me into fucking orbit, especially this one. They're like, Come to think of it, you know what? There was that guy in the water tower with binoculars. This guy who lives in the woods was watching this family for literally hours on end atop the water tower. Atop the water tower.

And it just slipped my mind. That would be something that would be top, tip top. Also, I would hope that my neighbors would come knock on my door.

I would hope. And say, hey, there's a man watching your home with binoculars atop the water tower.

We should do something.

What, do you want me to call someone?

Do you want me to like call? Maybe you guys should go somewhere. Yeah. Hello. I'm, I'm shook by everybody in this.

So now certain that they had the right suspect. Yeah. Police and sheriff's deputies combed the woods around the Ohta house for hours until they ended up finding the shack. But there was no sign of John anywhere. Convinced he would return at some point, they set up a stakeout and they watched the shack for almost an entire day. Around 8 a.m. on the morning of October 23rd, they saw him return. Not wanting to alert him to their presence, they waited an hour or two longer before finally storming the shack. More hesitancy. But you know, I'm like, I'm like, I realize you don't want to like scare him right away, but like 25 minutes, like an hour or two, half an hour, an hour or two feels like 20 minutes, 20 minutes max, max. Me thinks like I've never done it.

Settle in for 20 minutes. Like he's He's doing his thing.

Yeah.

You're free to storm the shack at that point. Storm it. Storm the fucking shack. Please.

Everybody hustle. Pull trig.

Hustle.

Pull trig.

This is California.

Everybody's chiller. If this was the East Coast, you'd never see it go down like this. You'd never see it be this slow.

Nobody can be that slow over here.

So they, like I said, they waited an hour or two before they stormed the shack. And that's where they caught Frazier asleep on a dirty mattress laid out on the floor. Holy shit. It. He was startled by the presence of police in his shack, but as soon as he understood what was happening, he looked at Terry Medina and said, "Why don't you give me what I deserve?" Whoa, chilling.

That's really chilling.

Now, he was taken into custody that morning, and a few hours later, he was charged with the murders of the 4 members of the Otoff family and the murder of Dorothy Caudwalader. The arrest was a major relief to everybody in Santa Cruz County. Especially when District Attorney Chang announced that they had captured the sole person responsible for the murders. Wow. And true to his word, Peter Chang made sure to tell reporters that they could not have apprehended John Fraser if it was not for the help of the hippie community, who were quote-unquote totally revulsed by the mass executions. Look at him.

I know, that's nice that he kept his word.

It is because it's the truth. It is. Now, in their interviews with Fraser's family and friends, they learned that after one of the most recent, recent accidents John had developed a fixation with wealthy people that he believed were quote unquote too materialistic. He said that they were harming the earth, but the one person he was the most fixated on was Victor Ohta.

Why?

According to a former friend, in the weeks leading up to the murders, John made several statements about how big things would be happening next Monday, which indicated his plan to kill the Ohtas. That same friend also told detectives that John confessed to him that he had broken into the Ohta family home on several occasions when they weren't there. And while inside, he stole several items, including the binoculars he was using to stalk them and the .22 caliber pistol that they were killed with.

Gotta say something.

Yeah. Later, when Lark, their daughter, was shown, uh, the items found in Fraser's possession, she identified them all as having belonged to her father. Wow. Now, the evidence was already quite substantial by the end of the day that he was arrested, but there was still more to be learned in the days that followed. Shortly after his arrest, he was placed in a voice lineup where he was identified by the gas station attendant as the man seen driving Virginia Ohta's station wagon on the night of the murders. And beyond that, there were his own statements about the murders made the day following his arrest. Christ. According to John, he said he received a message from God telling him that the Ohta family needed to die because they were too rich and they were harming the earth with their reckless materialism. Wow. Now meanwhile, these people are like giving back to their community.

That's the thing, it's like they're using their wealth for good.

Now on the day of the murders, he said he broke into the house early in the afternoon when no one was home, which is so fucking scary. That's when he found the .22 caliber pistol and the SCAR. Burps that he— and he started planning the executions in their home. Wow. He placed a call to Mr. Ohta's office saying that Virginia wouldn't be able to pick up the children from school because she was having car trouble, knowing that it would require them to change their plans and now that they would all be coming home at different times.

That's too much premeditation for me. Like, he thought that through way too well.

Oh yeah. When Dorothy returned to the house with Derek Ohta a few hours later, John ambushed them at the door and tied them up with the scarves. Mr. Ohta and Taggart returned home next, and they were ambushed and tied up in the same way. And finally, Virginia came home, and she too was ambushed and tied up. With the entire family bound and gathered in the living room, John ranted for some time about his beliefs about how they were harming the earth, and then he explained that he needed to destroy their home and actually even asked Victor Ohta to help him do Victor Ota did not respond to the request, but instead he said, we'll give you whatever you want, you can have any money that you want, and please just let my family live. But the mention of money and possession sent John over the edge, and now he was enraged. He dragged Mr. Ota— Dr. Ota out to the pool, pushed him in, and then shot him 3 times. What the fuck? Now once he started killing, he said he understood that there was no going back. Moments later, he brought Virginia and Dorothy out to the the pool and told the blindfolded women to kneel down.

After they did as he instructed, John asked Virginia whether she believed in God, and when she said that she did, he said, "Then you have nothing to fear," and shot them both in the back of the neck and pushed their bodies into the pool.

This is so fucked up.

It's so dark. Now, after killing all 3 adults, he said he hesitated when it came to the children who were 11 and 12. He told investigators that he kneeled down on the pavement beside the pool and begged God to give him a sign that he should spare the children. But when he didn't receive a sign, he said he had no other choice than to accept that the sins of the father had been passed on to the sons.

Oh, fuck off.

So he shot and killed both boys, Derek and Taggart. Wow. Now, it was clear to detectives that he had absolutely killed the family, but the question on many people's minds which I'm sure you can say it with me. Yep. Was he legally sane when he committed the murders? Which I'm so happy you've been pointing out the premeditation here.

Yeah.

So in the weeks after his arrest, he was placed in the custody of the county jail where he made a suicide attempt in his cell by cutting one of his wrists. Kinda. In his statement to the press, Peter Chang told reporters, he made a very superficial cut on one wrist. He is in no danger. In fact, it seemed that most of his behavior while in custody was that of somebody trying to convince people that he was mentally ill rather than somebody who was genuinely suffering from a mental disorder. I'm not here to say that he didn't have a mental disorder, but it very much seemed like he was—

He was trying to play it up a little more.

Yeah. Now, for instance, just before his interview with an evaluating psychiatrist, he shaved all the hair on one side of his head, including his eyebrows. For no apparent reason other than just to—

I just saw that picture and it is very unsettling.

It's really chilling. Terry Medina said in 2020, it very quickly just became a media train wreck. From the moment he was arrested, Santa Cruz County was descended upon by journalists from not only just all over the country, but some case— in some cases all over the world. The case was very sensational, and being that it was 1971 the idea of a spree killer was still pretty unfamiliar to most people. So a figure like John Fraser terrified ordinary people. Yeah, especially coming so close on the heels of the Manson murders. Now, as a result, the defense filed several motions that delayed the start of the trial, including a request for a gag order on everyone involved in the case and a motion to move the trial out of Santa Cruz County to ensure that he would be treated fairly. A judge approved the motion for the relocation, specifically citing the local population's animosity toward the hippie community. And commending Peter Chang for his attempts to minimize those negative feelings.

Yeah, he did try.

He did. Now, in late October of 1971, a year after the murders had been committed, the trial finally got started in Redwood City, which is about 50 miles from Santa Cruz. And there were countless spectators, journalists, everybody gathered inside the courtroom and even waiting in the halls. Assistant District Attorney Chris Caudle said, I would put him in the same camp as Manson, but unlike the Manson trial, there was no cheering section for Fraser.

Isn't that interesting?

Isn't it also insane that there was a cheering section? He had like legit murdered a woman who was 8 and a half months pregnant and all of her friends, and then a married couple. What's there to cheer for?

And also, how are you picking and choosing?

Exactly. Now, given that he had already essentially confessed to the murders, it was the job of the defense to convince the jury that that he was too mentally ill to be held accountable for the crimes. And to that end, he did his best to play the part. During witness testimony for the prosecution, he stared relentlessly at the witnesses and at one point even yelled at the district attorney for getting in between him and a witness that was on the stand. But despite the antics in the courtroom, several people testified to his bizarre behavior and the frequency that he raised the subject of quote-unquote snuffing out the rich and materialistic people of the world.

That's the thing, he's been talking about this. It's not like this was like, oh, I out.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So the trial dragged on for over a month with even more strange outbursts from Fraser. Throughout the trial, uh, his defense attorney James Jackson did his best to demonstrate his client's poor mental health and the extent to which they did believe that the police violated his rights with regard to collection of physical evidence, blah blah blah. Despite his best efforts though, it actually seemed like John Fraser was working against his lawyer rather than with him. Jaxon recalled in 2020, "Frazier didn't talk to me. He just wouldn't talk to us for a long time, and he gave 3 different stories to a psychiatrist." Oh geez. Now, in addition to the obvious fact that he was mentally ill, the prosecution faced the hurdle of not having the murder weapon at the time of the trial. But what they did have was enough to place him in the house at several points, including on the night of the murder. And while it may have been obvious that he was unwell when the crimes were committed, he killed a family which included two children. So they were hoping that would override at least some of the sympathy that jurors felt, if any at all.

Now, on November 26, 1971, both sides gave their closing arguments and the case was handed over to the jury. Throughout the trial, it was very hard to ignore that while he may have been performing this mental illness at various points, he was actively, clearly suffering from some kind of mental illness.

For sure.

And that did strengthen the defense's case. It made it tough for the jury. Mm-hmm. But being mentally ill was not in itself enough to prove that he was legally insane at the time of the murders.

Yeah, those are two very different things.

That's the thing that you have to remember. In fact, like you've been saying this whole time, there was considerable evidence that established he planned these murders in advance. And not only that, but he gathered what he needed in order to execute this plan. Yep. And on top of that, even after he committed the murders— this is a biggie— he set the house on fire and blocked both driveways in order to prevent help from arriving.

Yeah, that's big.

Which all suggested that while, yes, maybe mentally ill, he was still sane enough to know that what he was doing was a crime. Yeah. After 3 days, the jury emerged from deliberation and they found John Lindley Frazier guilty of 5 counts of first-degree murder. The following month, the same jury found him to have been legally sane at the time of those murders. I agree. And he was sentenced to death. Whoa. When a reporter asked him how he felt about the sentence, he said, 'Oh, I don't know, what sentence?' and then laughed. Wow. Unfortunately, while investigators initially did think that Tom DeCecco's murder was linked to the Ottaw family murders, there was never sufficient evidence, and the case remains unsolved. Wow. In 1972, just a few months after John Fraser was sentenced to death though, the California Supreme Court overturned the death penalty on the grounds that it was a cruel and unusual punishment. So Fraser's sentence was commuted to life in prison. A few weeks later, detectives found the Ota murder weapon among his possessions.

Stop.

They just didn't initially find it. What? Now, John Lindley Fraser ultimately spent 37 years at Mule Creek State Prison in Lone, California. Until August 13th, 2009, when he was found to have hanged himself in his cell at the age of 63. Wow. And that is the story of the Ohta family murders. Wow, what a chilling case.

What a chilling case, truly.

This man just like truly loses his grip on reality.

He never had a chance from the beginning.

He really didn't. But like moves into a shack in the woods and just singles in on this family.

That's so scary.

And like, I need to know for how long these people saw him.

That's a thing. Like, I'm sorry, that's making me crazy.

No, I know. Like, what? And just the fact that they're like, oh yeah, come to think of it.

Like, that's why I'm so glad me and my neighbors are all up each other's asses. Oh yeah, you should be. And honestly, that's the way it should be. We're always looking out for each other.

I hope mine are looking out for me.

Our group chat pops off if there's something suspicious going on. We're all just out there like, what the fuck's up, Kyle?

What the fuck is up, Kyle?

Like, FedEx truck, sorry, you're getting ganged up on by my whole neighborhood. We're following you around. That's just the way it is.

Neighbors coming out their house.

It's true. We're all just like staring you down as you go by.

It's wild.

I can't imagine my neighbors just being like, yeah, it's so weird, we saw somebody watching your house and your family with binoculars for hours on end. Yeah, it was nuts. We just kind of went about our business. Like, I can't imagine that.

And also, like, how long did it take to communicate that to the police? Because they were struggling to find a suspect for the—

and all of a sudden everyone's like, come to think of it, that guy from the water tower. Weird. That guy that was staring at you.

I feel like people like really kept to themselves.

Like, oh yeah, I think it was a totally different like culture.

Yeah. You know, but it's like to a bad degree.

Yeah. To a detriment. Exactly. Damn.

I think we're going to need a fun fact. Yeah.

I love this. In Switzerland, it's illegal to own just one guinea pig.

I know.

Because guinea pigs are like bro-y.

It's like a school.

And they're very sociable.

Yeah.

So they literally, the Swiss government classifies owning just one single guinea pig as animal abuse.

Oh my God. I love that.

That's pretty badass.

That's so funny that you said that.

A+ Switzerland.

My angel sweet daughter Dolores went to the pet store and she was like intrigued by the guinea pigs yesterday.

Wow. That is weird.

It's weird that you just brought up guinea pigs today.

Can't have just one.

No.

Got to catch them all.

I feel like you can't just have one animal at all. You have to have a whole team. Oh, you really can't. Unfortunately. It's just the way it is.

Yeah. Oh, that's so cute.

Isn't that adorable? All right, well, thanks so much, and we hope you keep listening. And we hope you keep it weird, but not so weird that you don't report the strange activities in the woods outside of your house and a man atop a water tower watching a family with their own binoculars.

Yeah, I hate that a lot. Shame. I hate it a lot.

Their own binoculars.